EricBall's Tech Projects

The Acer Aspire One netbook we bought after the fire has turned out to be a decent computer (especially with a RAM & SSD upgrade). It came loaded with Windows 7 Starter Edition and (bonus) MS Office Starter Edition.

The free upgrade to Windows 10 sounded like a good idea. Not only would I get all of the ongoing security updates etc....

Watched the second episode last night, which covered off the remaining 8 battles in the first round. Unfortunately, that made it a little rushed compared to the first episode which only covered 4 battles. It also meant that a bunch of the teams didn't get their 15 minutes of fame before getting knocked out.

For those who've never heard of it, Unity is a cross-platform game creation system: http://en.wikipedia....ty_(game_engine)
You can use it to develop games for current systems including Windows, OSX, web, IOS and Android. Free to download & use and practically free if you ever decide to sell your creations.

Back in the early 90s I got sucked into the Magic: the Gathering collectible card game craze. Little Alchemist is a "free to play" mobile version of a collectible card game. And while you can spend real money buying cards (just like I used to do with MtG), it is quite possible to have lots of fun playing without spending a dime.

My son managed to convince mom to install CoC on his iPhone. After watching a little bit, I put it on my HTC. It's pretty cool, although I wonder how Supercell is making any money given lack of IAP pressure and the TV advertising.

IAP - in app purchases, or the way "free-to-play" games make money. In the case of CoC, $$ buys you g...

Additionally, creator Markus "Notch" Persson, partner Jakob Porser and CEO Carl Manneh will also be leaving Mojang. Even before the sale Markus has tried to move away from Minecraft, but felt that selling out was they only way to continue to be himself.

A couple of years ago my wife and I played an MMO called Glitch. IMHO Glitch was doomed from the start because it only charged real money for vanity items and it wasn't social enough or fun enough to play indefinitely. However, the stylized artwork was was very well done and one of the more enjoyable parts of the game.

I've been playing Half Life (1) on the new 27" iMac - bigger is better! I've gotten most of the way through chapter 11 - Surface Tension, but I've discovered I bypassed getting the Tau gun back in chapter 10 - Questionable Ethics. Sigh.... I even managed to get through the whole drain hatch / minefield section without killing the hel...

While working at IBM (1993-2008) I acquired several classic Model M keyboards. Unfortunately, they have PS/2 connectors which isn't supported even by many current desktops. I have bought one of the "blue cube" adapters so I can use one at work, but I'm thinking I'd rather "roll my own" - open up the keyboard and replace the 6805 based controll...